Wondering if anyone has had experience bringing in a car from overseas for import under the 25-year exemption.
This was always a back-of-the-mind daydream kind of thing for me for years, but all of a sudden it is already 2022, and now some of the interesting mid-90s forbidden fruit that always seemed years away from being attainable is legal for import whenever. Volvos like manual-trans 2.5L 960s, B204GT cars, AWD 850s, TDI diesel 850s, manual trans R's. The diesel P80s are the ones I have fantasized about (along with a bunch of non-Volvo stuff), but they are all interesting.
Quite a few overseas import 850R's are already starting to show up -- mainly seem to be from Japan with RHD, which makes no sense to me. But we can get anything '97 or older now, and that includes an amazing variety of cool stuff.
Moreover the cars are extremely cheap in Europe.... A few thousand euro for nice ones. Especially the pre-emissions diesels which are now outlawed in many European cities and are thus becoming worthless there. Makes it seem silly to do it the old/hard way, buying an illegally imported engine or half-cut and doing a conversion starting with a US chassis. Why do all that when you can just buy a factory version of what you want for the price of a beater Civic??? At least that is the logic.
So -- is anyone else thinking about this? Anyone done it? Experiences, good or bad? Importer you liked or didn't like working with? Cost? Seems like common costs are something from $1000 to $2500 for the whole process start to finish -- acquisition in Europe, transport door to door, plus licensing process to get it legally in your hands and in your name. Still cheap, even if that stuff costs as much as the car did. But does it go smoothly? Do the folks offering to do this actually know what they're doing and follow through successfully with everything, especially the documentation?
Interested to hear anyone's thoughts, firsthand especially. Seems a lot of the importers are in Germany or Netherlands but due to winter corrosion issues in those areas the ideal for me would be to work with a source in France, Spain, or Italy.
This was always a back-of-the-mind daydream kind of thing for me for years, but all of a sudden it is already 2022, and now some of the interesting mid-90s forbidden fruit that always seemed years away from being attainable is legal for import whenever. Volvos like manual-trans 2.5L 960s, B204GT cars, AWD 850s, TDI diesel 850s, manual trans R's. The diesel P80s are the ones I have fantasized about (along with a bunch of non-Volvo stuff), but they are all interesting.
Quite a few overseas import 850R's are already starting to show up -- mainly seem to be from Japan with RHD, which makes no sense to me. But we can get anything '97 or older now, and that includes an amazing variety of cool stuff.
Moreover the cars are extremely cheap in Europe.... A few thousand euro for nice ones. Especially the pre-emissions diesels which are now outlawed in many European cities and are thus becoming worthless there. Makes it seem silly to do it the old/hard way, buying an illegally imported engine or half-cut and doing a conversion starting with a US chassis. Why do all that when you can just buy a factory version of what you want for the price of a beater Civic??? At least that is the logic.
So -- is anyone else thinking about this? Anyone done it? Experiences, good or bad? Importer you liked or didn't like working with? Cost? Seems like common costs are something from $1000 to $2500 for the whole process start to finish -- acquisition in Europe, transport door to door, plus licensing process to get it legally in your hands and in your name. Still cheap, even if that stuff costs as much as the car did. But does it go smoothly? Do the folks offering to do this actually know what they're doing and follow through successfully with everything, especially the documentation?
Interested to hear anyone's thoughts, firsthand especially. Seems a lot of the importers are in Germany or Netherlands but due to winter corrosion issues in those areas the ideal for me would be to work with a source in France, Spain, or Italy.
